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Jane Bitomsky’s debut novel, Death by Misadventure, came out October 1, 2026 from Lake Union. It opens in the 1500s with a naked dead man found under a waterwheel, missing a certain piece of his anatomy, and a coroner who has to work out whether it was an accident or something considerably worse.

Jane has a PhD in early modern English history. Her dissertation covered pregnancy and crime, which means part of it dealt with women pleading their bellies to delay execution. She assumed that background meant the research for the novel would be minimal. It wasn’t. 

Legal records are formulaic and tell you almost nothing about how people actually spoke to each other, so she ended up reading literature from the period, digging into historical societies to find real parishioner names and local occupations, and learning a truly impressive number of Elizabethan euphemisms.

Then there’s the road to publication. We discuss: 

• Ninety rejections before her first agent said yes
• Three rounds of edits over a year, then nine rejections from publishers on submission
• A second manuscript her agent read and declined to take out
• A parting of ways in January 2025, followed by thirty more rejections
• Two offers by March, a new agent, submission in April, and an acceptance in June
• A hundred and twenty rejections total, by her count

When I asked how the agent split felt, Jane called it "slightly dispiriting," which might be the most restrained response I've heard. She also pointed out that rejection doesn’t stop once you’re published. Her first review was two stars and came with a full essay on everything that's wrong with the book. We had a good time talking about clicking into a reviewer’s history and finding their other three-paragraph takedowns of peanut butter and wallpaper.

We also got into the marketing side, which looks different when you’re a debut author in New Zealand with an Amazon imprint. There’s real anti-Amazon sentiment there, her publisher’s focus is digital and audio, and when she called a local publicist, she was told plainly that they couldn’t help. She did find her book in Wellington’s biggest independent bookstore, however!

Her plan for a launch party is one I’ve never heard and immediately loved. She’s waiting until November or December so people have had time to read it, and she’s giving copies to friends ahead of time so there are actual questions from the room instead of her being alone on a stage wondering if anyone cares what she has to say.

Jane isn’t a social media person, which she declares without apology. She bought a dagger to open her author copies on camera, and now that it lives locked in her desk, she’s planning to use it on a cake with an edible version of her book cover on top and something resembling blood inside.

Her next book is with her agent now. She’s deciding between Death by the Angel and Death by Harlotry. I of course have strong feelings about which one it should be.

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